‘Arrow’ Episode 3.16 “Suicidal Tendencies” (7 out of 10) Starring Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Emily Bett Rickards, Colton Haynes. Guest Starring Brandon Routh, Matt Nable, John Barrowman, Audrey Marie Anderson, Michael Rowe, Steven Culp, Amy Gumenick. First aired March 25, 2015.
So Diggle and Lyla are officially that couple who has a baby and gets married (or in their case remarried) for the baby, staying together for the baby. Their wedding in the opening minutes of this episode was sweet and short, which I appreciated. Somehow Ray Palmer is some kind of minister (not ever explained how or why), so he gets to marry the happy couple. Oliver looks a little pained at Felicity being happy, and Roy and Thea are awkwardly infatuated, and Laurel sports a carpal tunnel wrist brace. It’s a CW wedding for all. Well. for Diggle and Lyla.
From that, an A.R.G.U.S. emergency pulls the happy couple from their honeymoon and to Kasnia, where they’re helping the Suicide Squad free a Senator Cray from a hostage situation. They’ve got squad regular Deadshot along for the ride, and newcomer Cupid. I don’t always like the Suicide Squad episodes, but this particular team and mission gelled particularly well. A lot of that has to do with the addition of Cupid to the group; I liked her in her single appearance earlier this season on “Arrow,” and here she brings enough comedy and unhinged pyschoness to lighten up the episode. Showrunners have said they wouldn’t be using Harley Quinn (a Suicide Squad staple for the last decade or so in the comics)(and a starring character in 2016’s “Suicide Squad” movie), but Cupid makes a handy stand-in.
The flashbacks in this episode flesh out Deadshot’s story; an Afghanistan war veteran who comes home broken, and doesn’t quite get things back together. He falls into depression and alcoholism, and eventually threatens his wife and daughter, and is locked up. His ticket out? Working for Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad. Knowing enough veterans, I wondered about the portrayal…but it doesn’t go too far or get too explicit with what he’s been doing. Killing people messed him up, but he’s very good at killing people. It’s a devastating cycle, and it made Deadshot who he is.
The Suicide Squad storyline was the central part of this episode, and even though it didn’t involve Oliver Queen, it went a long way towards making Diggle and Lyla feel more like “real” characters. They reach some conclusions by the end of this episode that made sense for the characters, and I consider them progress for their fictional lives. I’ve been worried for a while that Diggle would be pushed further offscreen by Arsenal, and Black Canary, and Thea, and Nyssa, and Atom, and…he’s a great character. Don’t let all the sidekicks filling the Arrowcave crowd him out.
don’t let the sidekicks crowd Diggle out.
Meanwhile, back in Starling City, Laurel’s trying to make peace with her dad; she lied to Captain Lance about Sara’s death (among other things), and that betrayal of trust has broken their bond as much as it did the bond between the Arrow and Lance. Ra’s Al Ghul and Maseo have been launching deadly attacks on Starling’s underworld, dressed as the Arrow; this spurs Ray Palmer in his shiny new A.T.O.M. suit to declare his own war on the Arrow. He quickly uses fancy software to ID the Emerald Archer as Oliver Queen, and a short battle with sparklies and arrows ensues. Ollie convinces Ray he’s been set up, and it looks like we’ve got the begining of a Super Friends style teamup on the rooftop.
It’s the first time we’ve seen the A.T.O.M. suit in action, and it’s pretty much Iron Man. These billionaires, man. I’m fine with them revising the longstanding Atom superhero to be more an exo-suit-styled hero; I do hope we’ll eventually see some kind of Atom-y shrinking powers brought into the character. Where he’s one of the characters announced for the new CW DC Comics spinoff, I’ll be patient.
The last scene in the episode (the one that gets cut off by DVRs) has Ray, Felicity, and the Lances in the Mayor’s office…we see Maseo dressed as the Arrow, he draws, shoots, and kills the mayor. He sets his sight on Felicity–and it fades to black, as we hear the “thwick” of the arrow being loosed.
There’s been a lot of talk about one of the “Arrow” regulars leaving by the end of this season; will it be Felicity? I hope she sticks around. Even though there’s been a bit too much melodrama this season (please don’t make her the weepy “Smallville” Lana Lang), she still brings more light, more levity to this series than anyone else does. I don’t know which character I’d kill off, but there are a lot to choose from. And hey, with some of that Nanda Parbat Lazarus Juice, we can always bring them back.